Principal state of the art is the so-called I.sup.2 C bus that has been patented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,740 assigned to the present assignee. With a seven bit address space the reference allows to explicitly address some one hundred-odd stations, without requiring that the addressing master have any knowledge about the physical position of the addressee. Due to the various different types of stations, with respect to their internal functionality, and also due to the various different manufacturers that have entered this fast-growing market, the present inventor has experienced a growing dearth of available addresses to such an extent that necessity repeatedly has caused assigning of a particular address to various types of stations.